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M  E  M  0  I  R 


OF 


CHARLES  FOLLEN  FOLSOM 


BY 
JAMES  JACKSON  PUTNAM 


From  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts 
and  Sciences,  Vol.  XLIV. 


CAMBRIDGE 
JOHN  WILSON  AND   SON, 

Sambevsttg  Press. 
1908 


DE.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

When  the  news  of  the  death  of  Dr.  Charles  Follen  Folsom  was  tele- 
graphed from  New  York  to  Boston,  on  August  20,  1907,  a  large  circle 
of  persons  —  social  acquaintances,  patients,  and  professional  colleagues 
—  felt  that  they  had  lost  the  support  of  a  faithful  adviser,  the  compan- 
ionship of  a  dear  friend. 

It  is  a  fortunate  asset  of  the  physician's  life  that  he  enters  into  inti- 
mate personal  relationships  with  many  of  the  individuals  who  turn  to 
him  for  advice,  and  has  an  unusual  chance  to  cultivate  his  powers  of 
sympathy.  But  there  have  been  few  physicians  of  this  neighborhood 
and  generation  in  whom  these  fires  of  personal  sympathy  have  burned 
so  warmly  as  they  did  in  Dr.  Folsom,  or  who  have  been  able  to  in- 
spire with  reciprocal  emotions  so  many  of  their  patients  and  their 
friends.  The  growth  of  these  attachments  was  genuine  and  unforced, 
for  they  were  based  on  well-grounded  affection  and  respect. 

Dr.  Folsom  had  settled  in  Boston,  with  a  record  of  two  years'  faith- 
ful service  for  the  freedmen,  but  without  influential  connections  and 
with  no  instinct  for  advertisement  of  himself.  He  showed,  however, 
marked  ability  as  a  practitioner,  marked  willingness  to  labor  for  re- 
sults worth  having,  a  high  standard  of  thoroughness  and  obligation,  and 
the  highest  possible  standard  of  friendship,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
these  qualities  made  him  a  real  figure  among  real  men  and  women  in 
our  community.  Some  extracts  from  a  letter  to  his  intimate  friend, 
Rev.  William  C.  Gannett,  written  about  1881,  will  recall  some  of  his 
characteristic  traits.  He  says:  ".  .  .  I  do  not  agree  with  you  as  to 
not  making  friends,  even  if  it  does  hurt  to  tear  up  the  roots.  Go  as 
deep,  say  I,  into  as  many  human  hearts  as  you  can.  Never  lose  a  single 
chance  for  knowing  one  person,  even,  well.  In  fact,  it  is  the  only  thing 
in  the  world  that  pays.  You  do  other  things  because  you  must,  or  it  is 
your  duty  to  do  so,  but  that  does  not  pay.  You  do  not  get  back  any- 
thing, and  the  volcano  inside  of  one  only  rumbles  and  growls  to  itself 
instead  of  letting  its  smoke  and  brimstone  out  in  the  world,  1  whereas 
in  knowing  people  well  you  get  more  than  you  give." 

1  The  order  of  the  clauses  in  this  sentence  have  been  slightly  changed,  for 
greater  clearness. 


4  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN  FOLSOM. 

"Yes,  I  am  going  to  Munich  to  study  with  Pettenkofer  andKVoit  and 
Wolfhiigel.  I  have  the  work  to  do  and  I  want  to  do  it  as  well  and  as 
much  of  it  as  I  can. 

"But  I  do  not  care  when  I  stop,  whether  next  year  or  next  week  or 
next  century.  So  long  as  the  machine  runs,  I  want  to  keep  some  useful 
spindles  going. 

"I  suppose  I  shall  say  Good-bye,  next  month,  to  many  I  may  not 
see  again,  but  I  can't  think  of  the  'gradual  forgetting';  that  seems 
hardly  possible,  and  life  is  too  short  and  too  full  of  disagreeable  things 
to  ever  forget  one  pleasant  friend." 

In  another  letter  in  which  he  discusses  with  deep  feeling  the  sacrifice 
he  made  in  relinquishing  the  practical  work  of  a  physician  for  the 
secretaryship  of  the  Board  of  Health,  he  writes:  "I  have  always  been 
strongly  drawn  to  a  life  which  will  be  one  to  bring  me  in  close  relations 
with  individuals  needing  help."  And  again,  in  the  same  letter,  "If 
people  will  only  place  their  ideals  high  enough,  they  may  easily  or  with 
a  fight  make  them  real.  .  .  .  You  know  that  I  am  conscientious  from 
sense  of  duty,  if  at  all,  and  not,  like  you,  by  instinct,  and  that  duty  does 
not  come  naturally  to  me,  but  only  after  toil  and  a  fight." 

The  sentiments  indicated  by  these  citations  point  to  Dr.  Folsom's 
general  characteristics  and  his  plan  of  life ;  and  the  remarkable  depth 
of  feeling  on  the  occasion  of  his  death,  shared  in  by  the  many  persons 
whom  he  had  befriended  with  his  wise  counsel  and  his  generous  purse, 
or  who  had  worked  side  by  side  with  him  and  knew  his  efficiency,  his 
intelligence,  his  fidelity,  and  his  power  of  accomplishment,  is  a  suffi- 
cient warrant  that  the  plan  was  carried  out. 

The  feeling  expressed  by  the  word  "loyalty,"  which  underlies  the 
best  instincts  of  the  moral  life,  was  a  fundamental  feature  of  his 
character. 

Charles  Folsom  was  born  in  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  April  3,  1842, 
the  fifth  of  eight  children.  His  father  moved  to  Meadville,  Pennsyl- 
vania, when  Charles  was  but  seven  years  old,  and  it  was  there  that  his 
boyhood  was  mainly  spent.  The  life  was  simple  and  uneventful,  but 
his  was  a  case  where  in  the  boy  could  be  read  in  great  measure  the 
character  of  the  man.  He  gained  new  traits  as  he  grew  older,  but  lost 
none  that  were  of  value.  Sweetness  and  evenness  of  temper,  affection- 
ateness,  a  strong  instinct  of  helpfulness,  untiring  industry,  skill  in 
the  use  of  brains  and  hands,  —  qualities  such  as  these  made  him  uni- 
versally beloved.  "The  best  boy  in  school  and  the  foremost  in  scholar- 
ship" was  the  judgment  of  his  teachers  and  school-fellows.  It  is  a 
good  test  of  a  boy  to  be  tried  as  the  playmate  of  his  younger  sisters, 
and  Charles  was  held  by  his  an  older  brother  without  peer. 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  5 

Both  of  his  parents  were  natives  of  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire. 
The  major  portion  of  his  ancestors  on  both  sides  were  of  the  English 
race,  but  the  progenitors  of  the  American  branches  came  early  to  New 
England,  the  Folsoms  2  settling  in  Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  and  the 
Penhallows,  whose  name  his  mother  bore,  in  Portsmouth.  They  were 
all  active,  respected  people,  many  of  them  prominent  in  public  life. 

Nathaniel  Smith  Folsom,  Dr.  Folsom's  father,  was  graduated  one 
of  the  foremost  in  a  somewhat  notable  class  at  Dartmouth  College 
in  182§.  He  studied  for  the  ministry  at  the  Andover  Theological  Sem- 
inary, but  was  soon  in  the  ranks  of  the  Unitarians,  and  after  some  years 
of  pastoral  work  in  New  England  was  appointed  (in  1849)  to  a  profes- 
sorship in  the  Theological  School  at  Meadville.  He  was  a  fine  clas- 
sical scholar,  high-minded  and  conscientious.  From  him,  as  well  as 
from  his  mother,  Charles  inherited  the  instinct  for  service  to  his  fellow- 
men  that  was  so  prominent  in  his  nature. 

Mrs.  Folsom  was  a  woman  of  rare  sweetness  and  evenness  of  temper, 
of  fine  and  strong  character,  with  the  fidelity  to  duty  and  the  steadiness 
of  purpose  that  had  been  dominant  traits  in  her  family  for  generations. 

In  1861  Mr.  Folsom  resigned  the  professorship  in  Meadville,  and  in 
1862  moved  to  Concord,  Massachusetts,  where  he  engaged  in  teach- 
ing. Here  the  family  remained  for  many  years.  I  recall  with  pleasure 
a  short  visit  to  them  at  that  place,  a  cross-country  walk  with  Dr.  Fol- 
som, then  a  medical  student,  and  the  impression  made  upon  me  by 
his  gentle,  quiet  manner,  his  simplicity  and  his  love  of  nature.  But 
during  most  of  the  Concord  period  he  was  away  from  home,  at  Port 
Royal,  or  studying  his  profession,  and  before  this  he  was  at  Exeter 
Academy  and  Harvard  College,  where  he  was  graduated  with  his  class 
in  1862,  the  second  year  of  the  war. 

Dr.  Folsom  would  have  enlisted  in  the  army  but  for  the  solicitation 
of  his  parents.  An  elder  brother  was  then  living  in  the  South  and  had 
been  drafted  into  the  Confederate  ranks,  and  they  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  their  two  sons  meeting  upon  opposite  sides.  This  brother 
was  heard  from  once  during  the  war,  through  a  weather-beaten  letter 
which  he  managed  to  get  smuggled  through  the  lines,  and  it  was  after- 
wards positively  ascertained  that  he  had  fallen  in  1862.  Instead  of 
entering  the  army,  Dr.  Folsom  offered  his  services  to  aid  in  carrying  out 
the  newly  organized  enterprise  in  behalf  of  the  freedmen  at  Port  Royal, 
and  was  sent  to  the  island  of  St.  Helena,  where  he  remained  for  the 
next  two  years.  The  Port  Royal  enterprise,  so  far  as  the  volunteer 
element  in  it  was  concerned,  was  the  outcome  of  the  sense  of  responsi- 

2  The  name  of  the  first  settler  (1638)  was  written  Foulsham. 


6  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

bility  for  the  negroes  on  the  part  of  Northern  sympathizers  with  the 
movement  of  abolition.  Dr.  Folsom's  father  was  an  ardent  abolition- 
ist and  this  move  on  his  son's  part  had  his  warm  encouragement; 
there  is  some  reason,  indeed,  to  think  that  he  suggested  it.  The  story  of 
the  movement  is  well  told  in  a  recent  book  entitled  "Letters  from 
Port  Royal,"  edited  by  Elizabeth  Ware  Pearson.  Early  in  the  war  3 
the  Sea  Islands  region  of  South  Carolina,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Port 
Royal  and  Beaufort,  became,  all  of  a  sudden,  untenable  for  its 
Southern  occupants  in  consequence  of  the  capture  of  two  forts  by 
Commodore  Dupont,  and  the  great  plantations  there  were  at  once 
abandoned  by  their  owners,  who  fled  precipitately,  leaving  behind  them 
several  hundred  negroes,  incapable  of  caring  for  themselves,  and  a  vast 
amount  of  cotton  nearly  ready  for  exportation.  Not  only  this,  but  refu- 
gee negroes  soon  came  pouring  in,  so  that  the  number  finally  reached 
several  thousand.  Cotton  agents  were  sent  down  by  the  Government  to 
look  after  the  cotton,  and  Mr.  Edward  L.  Pierce  of  Milton  was  placed 
in  charge  of  the  negro  problem  and  of  the  work  of  planting  next  year's 
crop.  Mr.  Pierce  sought  at  once  the  aid  of  private  citizens,  at  first  in 
Boston,  then. in  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  A  Freedmen's  Aid  So- 
ciety was  formed,  and  very  quickly  a  band  of  the  best  people  of  the 
North  was  under  way,  sufficiently  well  equipped  in  money,  ability,  and 
ardent  de\  otion  to  the  cause,  but  destitute  of  training  or  experience,  to 
face  the  problems  of  "the  housekeeper,  the  teacher,  the  superintend- 
ent of  labor,  and  the  landowner,"  under  conditions  strange  and  new. 
Especially  prominent  among  them  was  Mr.  Edward  S.  Philbrick  of 
Boston,  but  the  group  comprised  many  other  persons  of  intelligence 
and  devotion,  college  graduates  and  women  of  the  best  sort.  "For 
the  first  time  in  our  history  educated  Northern  men  had  taken  charge 
of  the  Southern  negro,  had  learned  to  know  his  nature,  his  status, 
his  history,  first-hand,  in  the  cabin  and  the  field.  And  though  subse- 
quently other  Southern  territory  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Northern 
men  and  women  to  manage  in  much  the  same  fashion,  it  was  not  in 
the  nature  of  things  that  these  conditions  should  ever  be  exactly 
reproduced.  The  question  whether  or  not  the  freedman  would  work 
without  the  incentive  of  the  lash  was  settled  once  for  all  by  the  Port 
Royal  Experiment." 

It  was  a  difficult  task  that  was  set  before  this  company  of  willing 
but  untried  philanthropists,  and  it  was  well  done.  "Keenly  as  they  felt 
the  past  suffering  and  the  present  helplessness  of  the  freedmen,  they 
had  the  supreme  common-sense  to  see  that  these  wrongs  could  not  be 

3  L.  c.  Preface. 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  i 

righted  by  any  method  so  simple  as  that  of  giving.  They  saw  that 
what  was  needed  was,  not  special  favor,  but  even-handed  justice.  Edu- 
cation, indeed,  they  would  give  outright;  otherwise  they  would  make 
the  negro  as  rapidly  as  possible  a  part  of  the  economic  world,  a  laborer 
among  other  laborers.  All  that  has  happened  since  has  only  gone  to 
prove  how  right  they  were." 

It  was  natural  that  friendships  formed  among  fellow-workers  under 
conditions  such  as  these  should  be  warm  and  lasting,  and  the  small 
group  of  men  and  women  of  which  Charles  Folsom  formed  a  member 
during  the  two  years  of  their  common  labors  in  field  and  cabin  on  St. 
Helena  Island  remained  firmly  bound  through  life.  Dr.  Folsom's 
nearest  friends  were  William  C.  Gannett  and  Miss  Mary  E.  Rice,  with 
whom  he  afterwards  freely  corresponded,  Edward  W.  Hooper,  and 
Charles  P.  Ware.  Mr.  Gannett  in  a  recent  letter  writes  as  follows: 
"While  we  were  together  in  Freedmen's  work  on  St.  Helena  Island,  in 
1862-1864,  he  lived  for  a  long  time  in  our  homej  —  Miss  Rice's  and 
mine ;  I  remember  well,  when  the  malaria  caught  me,  how  he  used  to 
sit  on  my  sick  bed  and  tell  stories  until  the  room  rang  with  our  laughter, 
and  how  he  journeyed  ten  or  twelve  miles  to  Beaufort  and  back  through 
the  sand  just  to  get  me  a  little  ice  for  the  fever." 

The  Port  Royal  experience  was  in  some  respects  a  disastrous  one 
for  Dr.  Folsom,  since  he  there  received  an  accidental  gun-shot  wound 
in  his  arm  which  caused  him  a  great  deal  of  pain,  and  in  addition  con- 
tracted malaria  and  a  valvular  disease  of  the  heart,  both  of  which 
troubles  are  believed  to  have  contributed  more  or  less  directly  to  his 
death.  He  also  began  to  suffer  from  severe  neuralgic  headaches  at 
about  this  time,  due  partly  to  the  shot-gun  accident,4  partly,  perhaps, 
to  the  malaria,  and  on  this  account  he  was  advised  by  his  physician,  on 
his  return  to  Boston,  in  1865,  to  make  a  long  voyage  by  sea.  Following 
this  advice  he  went  around  the  Horn  to  San  Francisco  as  passenger  on 
a  sailing  vessel,  and  came  back  before  the  mast,  much  improved  in 
health  though  not  quite  relieved  of  his  headaches,  which  continued  to 
trouble  him  during  his  medical  studies  and  even  later.  He  writes  to 
Miss  Rice  of  his  experiences  on  this  voyage :  "  How  amused  you  would 
have  been  to  see  the  calm  and  stately  way  in  which  I  wash  down  decks 
every  morning,  broom  in  one  hand,  water-bucket  in  the  other,  in  my 
bare  feet,  shirt  sleeves  rolled  up  to  my  elbows,  pants  rolled  up  to  my 
knees ;  or  could  you  but  see  my  dignified  roll  as  I  cross  the  main  deck, 
slinging  a  tar  bucket  over  one  shoulder  and  the  grease  pot  over  the 

*  Some  of  the  shot  lodged  in  the  scalp,  and  many,  though  perhaps  not 
all  of  them,  were  extracted  some  years  later. 


5  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

other;  or  the  sad  amble  as  I  pace  the  deck  in  the  lonely  midnight 
watch,  chanting  the  'Gideonite's  Lament'  or  'Katie's*'  gone  to  Rox- 
bury.'  I  am  exceedingly  glad  that  I  took  the  trip,  and  especially  that  I 
returned  a  tarry  sailor  as  I  did.  It  gave  me  insight  into  a  new  phase  of 
life,  and  I  am  sure  the  benefit  has  been  greater  than  if  I  had  come  back 
a  passenger."  Mr.  Gannett  recalls  the  following  incident,  important 
for  our  purpose:  "A  sailor  fell  from  aloft,  and  broke  himself  all  to 
pieces  so  hopelessly  that  they  left  him  in  a  huddle  to  die.  Folsom  5 
could  not  stand  that,  went  to  work  with  what  knowledge  he  had, 
patched  him  together  as  well  as  he  could,  nursed  him,  and  brought  him 
through  alive  to  New  York."  This  was,  as  Mr.  Gannett  says,  "his 
first  case,"  and  a  worthy  one. 

In  1866  Charles  Folsom  decided,  after  some  hesitation,  to  study 
medicine.  A  small  and  favored  portion  of  the  would-be  medical  stu- 
dents of  that  period  used  to  spend  a  few  months  in  taking  a  preliminary 
course  of  Comparative  Anatomy  under  Professor  Jeffries  Wyman. 
Dr.  Folsom  and  I  took  this  course  together,  and  vividly  do  I  remember 
our  first  meeting.  I  can  see  myself  lingering  about,  on  a  summer  morn- 
ing, in  the  cool  hall-way  of  Boylston  Hall,  where  Professor  Wyman's 
laboratory  lay,  watching  the  door  swing  open  and  observing  the  tall 
figure  of  Charles  Folsom  enter.  I  well  recall  his  boyish  yet  thoughtful 
and  intelligent  expression,  his  pleasant  smile,  his  light  hair  and  sun- 
burnt face,  and  his  plain  suit  of  homespun  gray.  We  were  entire 
strangers  to  each  other  then,  but  on  the  moment  a  bond  of  mutual  sym- 
pathy was  established  and  we  became  good  friends.  Professor  Wyman, 
that  rare  man  and  teacher  whom  every  one  admired,  loved,  and  trusted, 
soon  recognized  Dr.  Folsom's  ability  and  worth,  and  secured  for  him,  a 
few  years  later,  the  Curatorship  of  the  Natural  History  Museum,  a  posi- 
tion which  he  occupied  for  several  years  and  abandoned  with  regret. 

Between  1866  and  1869  came  medical  studies,  diversified  by  half  a 
year's  tutoring  in  Charlestown,  New  Hampshire,  which  secured  1  iin 
some  pleasant  acquaintances  and  a  gain  in  health,  though  it  was  felt 
as  a  somewhat  rasping  interruption  to  his  work. 

The  old  custom  of  supplementing  one's  class-room  studies  by  serving 
as  assistant  in  the  private  office  of  an  established  practitioner  (even 
during  the  medical  course)  was  still  followed,  to  some  extent,  at  that 
period,  and  in  this  way  Dr.  Folsom  made,  in  1868,  the  highly  valued 
acquaintance  of  Dr.  H.  I.  Bowditch.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Gannett, 
written  in  October  of  that  year,  he  says:  "Dr.  Bowditch  is  simply 
splendid.    He  is  one  of  the  purest-minded  men  I  ever  knew,  and  the  op- 

6  Not  yet  a  medical  student. 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  9 

portunities  for  study  are  very  great."  I  had  the  privilege  of  following 
Dr.  Folsom  at  this  task  and  can  warmly  testify  to  its  value.  The  duty 
of  the  assistant  was  to  receive  the  patients  in  an  anteroom  of  the  delight- 
ful study  at  the  house  on  Boylston  Street,  make  full  notes  of  their  histo- 
ries, which  were  to  be  submitted  afterwards  to  close  scrutiny,  and  a 
preliminary  diagnosis.  Then  came  the  physical  examination  by  Dr. 
Bowditch,  at  which  the  student  was  often  invited  to  assist,  and  the 
frank  comments  of  one  of  the  best  men' and  best  physicians  of  his  day. 
It  w7as  "section  teaching"  in  its  best  form.  Dr.  Folsom's  admiration 
for  Dr.  Bowditch  was  so  great  and  the  understanding  between  them 
became  so  fine,  that  the  friendship  then  established  proved  one  of  the 
great  forces  in  Dr.  Folsom's  life.  There  was  some  question  in  the  next  ■ 
year  (1869)  whether  he  should  become  assistant  at  the  City  Hospital  or 
at  the  Massachusetts  General,  for  which  he  first  applied.  It  was  to  the 
former  that  he  went,  and  he  found  reason  to  congratulate  himself  for 
so  doing,  largely  because  it  brought  him  again  under  Dr.  Bowditch. 
It  was  not  alone  admiration  for  Dr.  Bowditch' s  qualities  as  a  man  that 
drew  his  younger  friend  so  strongly,  but  similarity  in  sentiment  and 
opinion,  likewise.  Both  of  them  had  grown  up  in  the  atmosphere  of 
abolitionism,  and  Dr.  Bowditch's  ardent  advocacy,  both  of  that  cause 
and  of  the  natural  right  of  women  to  do  wThat  nature  fitted  them  to  do 
and  especially  to  practice  medicine  if  they  wished,  was  met  with 
quick  and  active  sympathy  on  Dr.  Folsom's  part.  In  later  years  his 
cautious  and  conservative  traits  came  more  prominently  forward,  but 
the  sentiments  by  which  he  was  mainly  moved  were  always  those  of 
unconventionality  and  freedom. 

He  strongly  advocated  the  plan  of  putting  a  woman  physician  on  the 
medical  board  of  Danvers  Hospital  and  took  an  active  part  in  further- 
ing the  admission  of  women  to  Johns  Hopkins  Medical  School.  In  the 
bibliography  which  follows  this  paper  a  reference  will  be  found  to  an 
address  of  his  upon  this  latter  subject. 

The  service  at  the  City  Hospital  came  to  an  end  in  the  spring  of  1870. 
As  soon  as  it  was  over  Dr.  Folsom  opened  an  office  on  Leverett 
Street  and  engaged  in  private  practice,  while  at  the  same  time  he  be- 
came physician  to  the  Massachusetts  Infant  Asylum,  then  recently 
established.  He  was  for  a  short  time  connected  also  with  the  Carney 
Hospital.  At  these  tasks  he  remained  until  the  spring  of  1872,  when  he 
obtained  a  much  desired  position  as  assistant  at  the  McLean  Asylum, 
then  in  the  old  familiar  grounds  at  Somerville,  and  this  he  kept  until 
the  autumn  of  1873.  He  threw  himself,  indeed,  at  this  period,  with 
great  energy  into  the  study  of  diseases  of  the  mind,  and  came  near  to 
selecting  this  branch  of  medicine  for  his  life  work.    Even  as  late  as 


10  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN  FOLSOM. 

1877  he  writes  to  Mr.  Gannett:  "The  bill  has  passed  the  Legislature 
requiring  the  Governor  to  appoint  trustees,  etc.,  to  Danvers,  and  the 
question  has  been  asked  me  square,  whether  I  w'd  be  Supt.  Although 
I  said  no  more  in  reply  than  that  I  would  not  say  no,  I  have  since  de- 
cided not  to  take  it,  and  very  largely  because ,  who  knows  me  for 

generations  back,  has  convinced  me  that  I  am  in  many  respects  un- 
suited  for  that  kind  of  work." 

In  the  autumn  of  1873  he  went  abroad  for  the  sake  of  "seeing  what  - 
asylums  are  there,  etc."  He  was  away  about  a  year,  studying 
mainly  in  Vienna  and  Berlin,  but  visiting  also  the  hospitals  of  England 
and  of  Scotland  and  making  valuable  acquaintances.  The  full  letters 
from  Europe  during  this  period  (1873-1874),  both  to  the  various  mem- 
bers of  his  family  and  to  Mr.  Gannett,  show  sound  observation  and  an 
active  mind.  He  found  the  English  asylums  the  best,  though  by  no 
means  above  criticism.  The  brutal  manners  of  the  Viennese  doctors 
towards  the  poorer  patients  disgusted  him,  but  did  not  prevent  him  from 
appreciating  the  splendid  opportunities  of  these  physicians  for  study 
nor  their  quality  as  teachers.  Man  for  man  he  liked  his  own  country- 
men the  best. 

While  he  was  still  away  an  event  occurred  which  proved  to  be  for 
him  of  great  significance.  This  was  his  selection  for  the  secretary- 
ship of  the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Health,  just  then  thrown 
open  by  the  regretted  death  of  Dr.  George  Derby,  a  position  in  which 
an  able  physician  could  do  more  for  the  health  of  his  fellow-citizens 
than  in  any  other  way  whatever.  The  State  Board  of  Health  had 
then  been  in  existence  just  four  years.  It  had  owed  its  life  to  the 
imagination  and  splendid  zeal  of  Dr.  Bowditch,  and  its  remarkable 
development  and  career  of  usefulness  at  once  to  his  labors  and  those  of 
his  public-spirited  and  able  colleagues,  and  to  the  energy  and  spirit 
of  Dr.  Derby,  fresh  from  service  as  army  surgeon  in  the  war  and  full 
of  interest  in  matters  relating  to  the  public  health.  The  Board  as  a 
whole  was  one  of  the  best  that  ever  served  the  State.  Dr.  Bowditch 
had  been. chairman  from  the  first,  and  when  the  question  came  up  of 
the  appointment  of  a  successor  to  Dr.  Derby  it  was  natural  that  his 
thoughts  should  turn  to  Dr.  Folsom,  young,  free,  of  approved  character 
and  ability,  and  possessed  already  of  experience  in  administrative 
work. 6    Dr.  Derby  died  in  June,  1874,  and  Dr.  Folsom  was  appointed 


6  Dr.  Bowditch's  personal  friendship  for  Dr.  Folsom  is  testified  to  by  the 
following  note,  evidently  written  at  a  period  when  observers  had  had  a  chance 
to  realize  the  quality  of  the  new  secretary.    Friends  of  Dr.  Bowditch  will  be 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  11 

on  September  12  of  the  same  year,  the  gap  of  four  months  having 
been  filled  by  Dr.  F.  W.  Draper.  The  members  of  the  Board  at  this 
time,  besides  Dr.  Bowditch,  were  J.  C.  Hoadley,  C.E.,  David  L.  Web- 
ster, Richard  Frothingham,  Robert  T.  Davis,  M.D.,  and  T.  B. 
Newhall.  These  same  members  served  until  1879,  when  the  depart- 
ments of  health,  lunacy  and  charity  were  combined  and  Dr.  Folsom 
was  chosen  secretary  of  the  united  Board. 

Dr.  Folsom  believed  that  in  accepting  the  appointment  as  secretary 
of  the  State  Board  of  Health  he  was  shaping  his  life-work,  and  in  the 
letter  to  Mr.  Gannett,  above  cited,  he  continues:  "Of  course,  you  can 
never  appreciate  the  disappointment  it  cost  me  to  give  up  the  practice 
of  medicine.  It  seemed  like  having  in  my  palm  something  for  which  I 
had  bent  every  energy  for  a  dozen  years,  and  then  calmly  throwing  it 
away,  and  the  silly  hankering  took  shape  in  Danvers  as  the  only  practi- 
cable form;  but  that  is  now  gone,  like  all  my  other  buried  hopes  at 
which  I  can  now  smile  and  joke." 

The  occupations  of  the  conscientious  secretary  of  such  a  board  as 
this,  certainly  of  tins  board,  are  but  faintly  indicated  in  his  title.  His 
duties  cannot  all  be  specified  in  detail  and  he  does  much  that  passes 
unrecorded.  Besides  his  labors  as  recording  and  executhe  officer, 
nothing  goes  on  that  does  not  pass  his  judgment,  feel  his  touch,  receive 
his  contribution.  He  is  the  nucleus  of  the  busy  cell.  The  reports  are 
in  great  part  his  work,  and  it  is  a  striking  tribute  to  Dr.  Folsom's  in- 
dustry and  ability  that  the  volume  which  was  issued  on  the  first  of 
January,  1875,  only  three  months  after  his  appointment,  was  not  only 
ready  at  the  proper  time,  but  contained  a  long  article  by  him,  implying 
careful  study,  upon  the  meat  supply  of  our  cities,  with  suggestions  for 
its  improvement.  One  of  the  most  important  among  the  numerous  and 
manifold  secretary's  jobs,  and  a  task  that  called  for  good  feeling,  tact, 
and  judgment  of  a  high  order,  as  well  as  for  firmness  and  intelligence, 
was  that  of  going  about  as  inspector,  critic,  and  adviser  among  the 
various  towns  and  villages  of  the  State,  in  the  interests  of  sanitary  re- 
reminded  by  it  of  the  generous  warmth  which  he  threw  alike  into  his  friend- 
ships and  his  public  work. 

"Boston,  June  25. 

"My  dear  Dr.,  —  I  send  by  mail  the  Advertiser  of  to-day.  I  felt  my  heart 
almost  jump  as  I  read  the  fine  compliment  paid  to  you  my  dear  Dr.  in  the 
editorial.  I  certainly  echo  the  wish  that  you  may  long  continue  to  occupy 
the  position  in  which  you  are  growing,  not  only  in  yourself,  but  in  the  estima- 
tion and  love  of  the  community.  God  be  praised  that  you  dropped  a  letter 
to  me  from  Europe  "just  in  the  nick  of  time."  .  .  . 

"  Faithfully  yours, 

"H.  LB." 


12  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

form.  It  was  after  one  of  these  trips,  in  November,  1877^  that  the 
North  Adams  Transcript  published  a  long  editorial,  impressive  with 
figures  and  with  facts,  the  opening  paragraphs  of  which  here  follow. 

"As  stated  in  a  previous  issue,  Dr.  Charles  F.  Folsom,  Secretary  of 
the  State  Board  of  Health,  recently  visited  our  village  for  the  purpose 
of  making  a  thorough  investigation  into  its  sanitary  condition.  For  the 
limited  time  which  he  spent  here,  his  work  was  been  remarkably  thor- 
ough, and  the  results  of  his  examination,  which  we  publish  in  full,  are 
of  a  nature  calculated  to  startle  our  citizens  and  awaken  a  profound  in- 
terest in  an  important  and  heretofore  neglected  subject." 

The  inv  estigations  with  which  Dr.  Folsom  became  especially  iden- 
tified (besides  the  question  of  meat-supply,  above  referred  to)  in  the 
five  years  that  followed  his  appointment,  related  to  water-supply  and 
the  disposal  of  sewage,  vital  statistics,  and  his  old  love,  —  diseases  of  the 
mind.  On  these  vast  problems  he  made  himself  an  expert,  so  far  as  this 
could  be  done  without  actual  laboratory  work.  For  this  he  was  not 
trained,  but  what  he  did  and  what  his  mental  constitution  admirably 
fitted  him  to  do  was  to  scrutinize  and  estimate  and  contrast  and  after- 
ward to  summarize  the  work  of  other  men,  in  Europe  and  at  home,  and 
then  intelligently  to  form  a  plan  suited  for  Massachusetts  and  for 
Boston.  One  reason  why  the  work  of  the  State  Board  at  the  period  of 
Dr.  Folsom's  service  was  so  largely  given  up  to  questions  of  water- 
supply  and  drainage  and  the  disposal  of  sewage  was  that  these  subjects 
had  begun  to  attract  the  public  interest  in  a  high  degree.  This  led 
to  legislation  by  the  State  authorities  and  permission  to  employ  experts, 
the  results  of  whose  investigations  are  given  in  the  successive  annual 
reports.  In  these  inquiries  the  City  of  Boston  took  an  active  part,  and 
the  problem  of  its  sewerage  was  studied  in  1875-1876  by  a  special 
commission,  consisting  of  E.  S.  Cheesborough  and  Moses  Lane  as 
representing  the  department  of  civil  engineering,  and  Dr.  Folsom  as 
standing  for  the-  interests  of  the  public  health.  This  commission  was 
appointed  by  the  city  government  in  February,  1875,  only  a  few  months 
after  the  nomination  of  Dr.  Folsom  to  the  position  of  Secretary  to  the 
State  Board  of  Health,  and  the  choice  of  him  as  a  member  may  there- 
fore be  considered  as  a  recognition  of  his  merits.  The  commission  was 
called  on  to  consider,  one  by  one,  a  series  of  important  practical  prob- 
lems relating  to  the  sewerage  system  of  the  city  and  the  modes  by  which 
it  could  be  bettered.  One  portion  of  the  investigation  consisted  in  a 
study  of  the  methods  of  dealing  with  the  sewage-waste  adopted  in  other 
cities  of  America  and  Europe  and  the  experiments  in  utilizing  it  through 
irrigation-farms.  The  investigation  of  these  matters  necessitated  an- 
other trip  to  Europe  on  Dr.  Folsom's  part  (in  1875),  during  which  the 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  13 

material  was  collected  which  was  published  as  an  appendix  to  the 
report  of  the  commission.  The  plan  recommended  in  this  report  was, 
as  is  well  known,  the  building  of  the  great  system  of  the  Metropolitan 
intercepting-sewer  for  that  portion  of  the  city  lying  on  the  south  side 
of  the  Charles  River,  with  pumping  stations  at  Moon  Island,  discharg- 
ing on  ebb-tide  into  the  bay.  Dr.  Folsom  afterwards  appeared  before 
the  Joint  Committee  on  Improved  Sewerage  and  presented  an  elab- 
orate defence  and  explanation  of  this  plan,  contrasting  it  with  that 
offered  by  the  Superintendent  of  Sewers,  which  he  admitted  to  be 
cheaper  but  believed  to  represent  a  false  economy.  The  plan  advised 
by  the  commission  was  finally  adopted,  and  was  carried  out,  and  has 
proved,  in  many  ways,  remarkably  successful.  The  same  principle  was 
applied  later  to  the  north  side.  The  preliminary  investigation  had 
been  thorough,  the  reasoning  based  on  it  was  convincing,  and  the  con- 
clusions were  conservative  and  sound.  Besides  contributing  to  the 
able  and  impressive  reports  made  by  this  commission  and  by  the  State 
Board  of  Health,  with  all  their  many  maps  and  tables,  Dr.  Folsom  read 
a  paper  before  the  American  Statistical  Association,  in  April,  1877,  in 
which  the  sewage-farm  question  in  particular  was  discussed,  on  the 
basis  of  a  remarkable  amount  of  knowledge  and  of  judgment.  Other 
communications  on  this  and  kindred  subjects  had  appeared  in  the 
Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal  in  the  form  of  letters  written 
during  his  trip  abroad. 

As  soon  as  the  work  of  the  board  with  reference  to  water-supply  and 
drainage  began  to  relax,  Dr.  Folsom  turned  his  attention  again  to  the 
duties  of  the  State  with  relation  to  insanity  and  to  the  general  question 
of  the  treatment  of  the  insane.  In  1877  he  published  the  long  article  on 
this  subject  entitled  Diseases  of  the  Mind,  which  was  republished  in 
book  form.  This  excellent  monograph  reviews  the  history  of  the  treat- 
ment of  insane  patients  from  the  earliest  times,  and  describes  with 
accuracy  what  was  being  done  and  what  was  being  planned  in  all  the 
great  institutions  of  Europe  and  America.  It  tells  a  striking  and 
highly  interesting  story.  The  materials  for  this  work  had  been  collected 
partly  during  his  visit  to  Europe  in  1875,  when  he  had  industriously 
visited  asylums  and  formed  the  acquaintance  of  several  prominent 
alienists,  especially  in  England.  With  him  acquaintance  was  more 
than  apt  to  ripen  into  friendship,  and  such  was  the  case  as  regaFds  his 
relationship  to  Dr.  T.  S.  Clouston  of  Edinburgh,  perhaps  the  leading 
alienist  of  Great  Britain  at  that  day,  and  a  man  of  warm  and  fine  per- 
sonal qualities  which  attracted  Dr.  Folsom  strongly.  The  friendship 
between  them  was  strengthened  by  subsequent  visits  to  Edinburgh  on 
Dr.  Folsom's  part  and  a*  visit  by  Dr.  Clouston  to  America.    Several  of 


14  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

Dr.  Folsom's  patients  spent  some  time  at  the  pleasant  institution  of 
Morningside,  under  Dr.  Clouston's  care. 

It  was  within  a  year  after  the  publication  of  this  paper  that  Dr.  Fol- 
som  was  offered  and  declined  the  superintendency  of  Dangers  Hos- 
pital, as  above  described. 

The  work  of  the  State  Board  of  Health,  extensive  as  it  was,  did  not 
prevent  him,  at  this  period,  from  giving  a  certain  amount  of  time  to 
private  practice,  especially  among  the  insane,  nor  from  lecturing  at 
the  Harvard  Medical  School.  His  connection  with  this  school  began 
in  1877  and  continued  until  1888.  He  served  first  as  lecturer  on  hy- 
giene, then  gave  instruction  in  both  hygiene  and  mental  diseases,  and 
finally  became  assistant  professor  of  Mental  Diseases.  His  resigna- 
tion was  prompted  partly  by  the  lack  of  proper  clinical  facilities  for 
teaching,  partly  by  the  fact  that  he  had  finally  decided  to  withdraw 
from  the  exclusive  study  of  diseases  of  the  mind  and  to  devote  himself 
to  the  work  of  a  general  practitioner  and  consultant.  But  this  is  to 
anticipate,  as  we  still  have  several  interesting  years  of  public  work 
to  chronicle. 

I  have  sketched  the  principal  features  of  his  labors  as  secretary  of 
the  State  Board  of  Health  as  far  as  1879.  In  that  year  two  events  of 
importance  for  him  occurred,  namely,  the  appointment  of  the  Yellow 
Fever  Commission,  of  which  he  was  made  a  member,  and  the  sub- 
merging of  the  Board  of  Health  in  the  combined  Board  of  Health, 
Lunacy,  and  Charity,  of  which  he  was  appointed  secretary  and  of  which 
he  was  made  a  member  in  the  following  year. 

The  yellow  fever  epidemic  of  1879-1880  ravaged  several  of  the  South- 
ern States,  especially  those  bordering  on  the  Mississippi  River,  and  the 
National  Advisory  Commission  was  appointed  to  inspect  the  infected 
districts  and  consult  with  local  authorities  and  officers  of  public  health. 
As  a  member  of  this  commission  Dr.  Folsom  visited  a  number  of  South- 
ern cities,  especially  Memphis  and  New  Orleans,  and  left  behind  him  a 
pleasant  impression  of  tact,  judgment,  and  good  breeding,  of  which 
Dr.  H.  P.  Walcott,  Dr.  Folsom's  successor  on  the  Board  of  Health, 
still  found  traces  on  the  occasion  of  a  visit,  many  years  later,  to  the 
same  localities.  The  most  important  result  of  the  trip  for  Dr.  Folsom 
himself  was,  however,  that  it  brought  him  into  close  contact  with  Dr. 
John  S.  Billings,  and  laid  the  basis  for  one  of  those  enduring  friend- 
ships in  which  he  was  so  rich. 7    This  same  outbreak  of  yellow  fever 

1  In  a  recent  letter  Dr.  Billings  writes:  "From  my  first  acquaintance 
with  him  I  had  the  greatest  respect  for  his  judgment,  and  the  frank  honesty 
of  the  way  he  gave  it,  and  as  we  became  intimately  associated  the  friendship 
grew  into  a  warm  affection  which  continued  to  the  end.     He  was  a  model 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  15 

formed  the  occasion  for  the  establishment  of  the  National  Board  of 
Health,  and  of  this  Dr.  Billings  and  Dr.  H.  I.  Bowditch  were  appointed 
members.  There  were  thus  several  ties  that  bound  Dr.  Folsom's  in- 
terest to  the  work  of  this  important  Board,  and  it  was  only  natural  that 
on  Dr.  Bowditch's  retirement,  in  1882,  Dr.  Folsom  should  be  chosen 
his  successor.  The  work  of  the  Board  by  that  time,  to  be  sure,  was 
already  waning  under  the  inanition  treatment  to  which  it  was  sub- 
jected by  the  government  at  Washington,  and  in  the  few  remaining 
years  of  its  life  it  did  but  little  active  work.  Nevertheless,  it  served  to 
cement  still  closer  the  bond  of  friendship  between  Dr.  Folsom  and  Dr. 
Billings,  and  also  brought  the  former  into  wider  notice  among  public 
men. 

The  absorption  of  the  Board  of  Health  into  the  combined  Board  of 
Health,  Lunacy  and  Charity,  was  a  matter  of  profound  regret  to  Dr. 
Folsom  as  to  Dr.  Bowditch,  and  to  all  their  colleagues.  They  felt  that 
the  co-operative  effectiveness  of  the  small  group  of  men  who  had  learned 
to  work  so  well  together  was  likely  to  be  impaired,  and  with  no  com- 
pensating benefit.  Dr.  Bowditch  who  was  appointed  on  the  new  Board, 
but  resigned  almost  at  once,  partly  to  gain  more  time  for  other  labors, 
partly  as  a  means  of  expressing  his  disapproval.  Dr.  Folsom  was  made 
secretary  of  the  new  Board,  at  first  with  special  duties  relative  to  the 
health  department,  but  resigned  in  January,  1881,  just  a  year 
after  Dr.  Bowditch.  He  had  identified  himself  with  many  of  the  im- 
portant measures  that  were  adopted  by  the  Board  during  his  brief  term 
of  service,  and  lent  his  aid  to  carry  into  effect  a  scheme  which  then, 
perhaps,  seemed  to  most  onlookers  to  be  of  much  less  consequence 
than  it  later  proved.  This  was  the  appointment  by  the  State  Board  of 
carefully  selected  women,  from  the  different  towns  throughout  the 
State,  to  act  as  " Auxiliary  Visitors"  to  the  State  Board  of  Health, 
Lunacy,  and  Charity,  in  looking  after  the  girls  from  the  State  Primary 
School  at  Monson,  and  the  State  Industrial  School  at  Lancaster,  as 
well  as  those  committed  to  the  custody  of  the  board  itself  and  placed  out 
with  relatives  or  in  other  families,  while  still  remaining  wards  of  the 
State.  The  appointment  of  these  visitors  increased  very  materially 
the  value  of  the  Board's  work  in  that  direction.  Similar  work  had 
been  going  on  for  some  years,  on  a  small  scale,  as  an  informal  outgrowth 
of  the  efforts  of  a  few  women  who  had  been  assisting  Colonel  Gardiner 
Tufts,  Superintendent  of  the  State  Visiting  Agency,  but  it  was  of  great 

citizen,  giving  time  and  skilled  labor  to  public  interests  without  a  thought  of 
personal  benefit  —  a  skilled  physician,  beloved  by  his  patients,  and  a  gentle- 
man in  all  the  best  senses  of  that  word.  I  am  proud  of  the  fact  that  he  was  my 
friend." 


16  DR.    CHARLES  FOLLEN  FOLSOM. 

importance  to  have  the  system  adopted  by  the  State  P^pard,  its  value 
recognized,  and  its  work  established  on  a  larger  scale. 

Besides  serving  on  the  State  Board  Dr.  Folsom  gave  much  time 
during  the  early  eighties  to  the  Danvers  Lunatic  Hospital,  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  which  he  had  been  greatly  interested  and  of  which  he 
had  been  made  trustee.  In  1881  he  read  an  excellent  paper  entitled 
"The  Management  of  the  Insane,"  before  the  Hospital  Trustees  As- 
sociation, discussing  and  forecasting  the  conditions  needed  to  make  a 
hospital  fulfil  its  possibilities  of  efficiency.  As  usual,  practical  good 
sense,  thorough  information  and  earnest  desire  for  reform  inspire  its 
pages,  on  one  of  which  he  refers  to  his  studies  made  during  five  visits  in 
different  years  to  Great  Britain.  Another  paper,  on  "The  Relation  of 
the  State  to  the  Insane,"  was  read  at  the  American  Medical  Associa- 
tion this  same  year. 

In  the  following  year,  1882,  occurred  the  trial  of  Guiteau  for  the 
assassination  of  President  Garfield,  followed  by  his  condemnation  and 
execution,  notwithstanding  the  protest  of  a  large  number  of  the  best 
physicians  of  the  country.  Dr.  Folsom  took  part  in  the  public  dis- 
cussion of  the  merits  of  this  case,  and  in  so  doing  revived  an  interest 
in  medical  jurisprudence  which  had  expressed  itself,  even  in  1875,  in 
a  paper  entitled  "Limited  Responsibility:  a  Discussion  of  the  Pome- 
roy  Case,"  in  1877  by  an  article  on  "Medical  Jurisprudence  in  New 
York,"  and  in  1880  by  an  account  of  "Cases  of  Insanity  and  of  Fa- 
naticism," devoted  mainly  to  the  remarkably  interesting  case  of  Free- 
man, the  religious  fanatic  of  the  quiet  village  of  Pocasset  on  Cape  Cod 
who  had  killed  a  favorite  child  under  a  supposed  Divine  command. 
The  study  of  such  borderland  cases,  involving  questions  of  moral  and 
of  legal  responsibility,  continued,  indeed,  to  interest  him  throughout 
his  life,  and  it  is  well  known  to  his  friends  that  he  analyzed  with 
extreme  care,  through  several  years,  the  data  in  the  noted  case  of 
Jane  Toppan.  Pomeroy  and  Jane  Toppan  he  believed  to  be  essen- 
tially criminals,  Guiteau  insane.  Freeman  he  rightly  judged  a  crank 
of  the  fanatic  type,  a  product  of  his  environment,  and  only  technically 
insane.  He  kept  close  watch  of  Freeman  from  the  beginning  onward, 
was  instrumental  in  securing  his  release  on  probation  from  the  asylum 
in  which  he  was  confined,  and  rejoiced  at  the  continued  reports  of  his 
subsequent  good  behavior,  which  have  continued  to  come  in  even 
to  the  present  day. 

In  1881  Dr.  Folsom  was  appointed  visiting  physician  to  the  City 
Hospital,  and  it  was  largely  on  his  account  that  a  ward  was  established 
there  for  the  study  and  treatment  of  nervous  diseases.  Of  this  ward 
Dr.  S.  G.  Webber  and  he  were  made  physicians.    Strictly  speaking, 


Please  insert  this  slip  on  page  16  of  the  Memoir  of 
Dr.  C.  F.  Folsom. 

The  account  here  given  of  the  establishment  of  the  ward  foivjiervous 
and  renal  diseases  contains  certain  errors.  The  facts  are  that  Dr. 
Folsom's  appointment  in  1881  was  not  as  visiting  physician,  but  to  the 
out-patient  service  (see  footnote  to  page  19),  and  that  the  ward  here 
referred  to  was  established  in  1877,  at  the  request  of  Dr.  R.  T.  Edes, 
who  had  been  for  some  years  visiting  physician  to  the  hospital.  Dr. 
Edes  and  Dr.  S.  G.  Webber  were  appointed  (in  1878)  as  physicians  to 
the  new  ward.  In  1882  Dr.  James  H.  Denny  was  appointed  as  addi- 
tional physician,  but  resigned  after  a  short  service.  Dr.  Webber  re- 
signed his  service  in  1885,  and  Dr.  Edes  in  the  following  year,  1886. 
Dr.  Folsom  was  appointed  in  September,  1885,  to  succeed  Dr.  Webber. 
By  that  time  it  had  become  customary  to  admit  a  larger  number  of 
general  medical  cases  to  this  service  than  at  first ;  and  in  1886  it  was 
proposed  to  change  the  character  of  the  service  altogether,  making  it 
simply  a  third  medical  service.  This  proposition  was  referred  to  a  com- 
mittee of  which  Dr.  Folsom  was  a  member,  and  was  adopted  on 
December  22,  1886. 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  17 

the  ward  was  devoted  partly  to  nervous  and  partly  to  renal  diseases, 
but  even  thus  it  was  the  first  neurological  ward  to  be  established  in 
Boston,  and  would  stand,  if  it  still  existed,  as  the  only  department  in 
a  public  institution  of  this  city,  with  the  exception  of  the  Long  Island 
Hospital,  where  disorders  of  the  nervous  system  could  be  systemat- 
ically and  adequately  taught  and  studied  under  expert  supervision. 
The  ward  continued  to  be  thus  used  for  several  years,  but  was  then 
given  over,  to  the  great  sorrow  of  onlooking  neurologists,  to  the  gen- 
eral purposes  of  the  hospital.  At  the  same  time  Dr.  Folsom  became 
a  member  of  the  regular  visiting  staff,  and  at  about  the  same  period 
made  a  strong  and  indeed  successful  effort  to  change  the  character  of 
his  private  and  consulting  practice  to  that  of  an  "internist"  or  gen- 
eral practitioner. 

In  1882  Dr.  Folsom  was  appointed  consulting  physician  to  the 
Adams  Nervine  Asylum. 

In  1886,  while  still  especially  interested  in  nervous  diseases,  he 
delivered  six  lectures  on  school  hygiene,8  one  of  which,  "On  the  Rela- 
tion of  our  Public  Schools  to  the  Disorders  of  the  Nervous  System," 
was  reprinted  for  distribution.  This  sort  of  task,  in  which  his  two- 
fold instincts  and  training,  as  a  hygienist  and  as  a  neurologist,  were  to 
be  enlisted  in  the  practical  service  of  a  concrete  set  of  public  needs, 
was  a  congenial  one  to  him  and  was  always  well  performed. 

In  the  next  year  (1887)  he  took  part  in  the  discussion  of  another 
topic  of  public  interest,  namely,  whether  the  State  should  establish  a 
hospital  for  dipsomaniacs.     To  this  plan  he  was  opposed. 

This  is  perhaps  the  proper  place  to  mention  that  Dr.  Folsom  had 
been  warmly  interested  for  many  years  in  the  question  of  the  proper 
treatment  of  prostitution.  He  studied  this  subject  diligently,  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  wrote  his  views  upon  it  at  length  to  Mr.  Gannett. 
Unfortunately  he  did  not  publish  them,  and  it  would  perhaps  be  unjust 
to  consider  them  as  final.  They  are,  however,  of  interest  as  an  ex- 
ample of  his  habitual  generosity  of  sentiment.  Like  the  majority  of 
cultivated  men,  and  especially  those  who  have  labored  practically  in 
the  harness  of  organized  progress,  Dr.  Folsom  was  conservative  and 
inclined  to  see  two  sides  to  every  proposition.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
was  by  inheritance  and  by  temperament  a  reformer,  a  hater  of  injustice, 
of  oppression,  and  of  immorality.  These  sometimes  conflicting  tend- 
encies were  all  drawn  upon  in  his  studies  into  the  question  of  prosti- 
tution.   Whatever  is  to  be  said  of  the  varied  influences  and  motives 

8  Given  before  the  teachers  in  the  public  schools,  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Massachusetts  Emergency  and  Hygiene  Association. 


18  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN  FOLSOM. 

at  work,  the  observation  of  those  who  fall,  he  writes,  "increases  one's 
admiration  for  those  many  persons  in  all  stations  of  life  who  lead 
lives  of  purity  and  nobleness,  and  to  whom  trial  and  temptation  only 
give  added  purity  and  strength.    If  people  will  only  place  their  ideals 

high  enough,  they  easily  or  with  a  fight  may  make  them  real.    does 

not  believe  this,  but  I  know  it." 

In  the  spring  of  1886  Dr.  Folsom  was  married  to  Martha  Tucker 
Washburn,  sister  of  his  classmate  William  T.  Washburn,  and  this  for- 
tunate event  filled  with  happiness  and  serenity  the  whole  remainder 
of  his  life.  Domestic,  affectionate,  home-loving,  and  hospitable,  his 
marriage  brought  to  him  as  much  fulness  of  satisfaction  as  any  of 
his  friends  could  have  desired.  It  gave  new  scope,  too,  to  his  hospital- 
ity and  his  strong  social  instincts,  for  these  traits  were  eminently 
characteristic  of  his  wife  also,  and  their  table  became  well  known  as 
one  where  good  talk,  good  fellowship,  and  good  humor  in  the  best 
sense  were  to  be  found.  Dr.  Folsom  had  had  a  wide  experience  with 
men,  with  books,  and  with  affairs;  he  had  a  good  memory,  a  good 
sense  of  humor,  a  fondness  for  a  good  story  and  the  capacity  to  tell 
one,  and  these  characteristics,  combined  with  his  real  love  for  his 
fellow-men,  made  him  a  highly  acceptable  companion. 

For  a  number  of  years  he  had  been  very  busy  in  his  private  prac- 
tice and  his  marriage  only  increased  his  zeal  in  this  respect  and  his 
opportunities  for  conducting  his  work  as  he  desired.  To  an  unusual 
degree  he  treated  his  patients  as  his  friends  and  made  them  welcome 
visitors  at  his  house.  This  tendency,  which  was  instinctive  with  him 
and  formed  a  part  of  his  desire  to  lead  a  life  which  should  bring  him 
into  close  contact  "with  individuals  needing  help,"  was  thoroughly 
sympathized  in  and  actively  forwarded  by  his  wife,  and  materially 
increased  his  power  for  good. 

As  a  diagnostician  and  practitioner  Dr.  Folsom  was  a  careful,  accu- 
rate observer,  sound  and  conservative  in  judgment  and  resourceful 
in  meeting  practical  needs,  and  it  was  these  qualities  rather  than  an 
ability  and  instinct  for  scientific  investigation  that  brought  him  his 
success.  His  contributions  to  what  might  be  called  pure  science 
were  in  fact  not  numerous,  and  became  less  so  as  time  went  on.  It 
was  always  the  vision  of  "the  individuals  needing  help  "  that  led  him 
on.  The  worrying  habit  might  readily  have  developed  itself  in  him, 
but  he  systematically  discouraged  this  tendency  and  opposed  to  it  a 
simple  and  gentle  philosophy  of  living  which  methodical,  well-ordered 
habits  aided  to  make  effective.  Generosity  was  a  constant  trait  through- 
out his  life  and  for  nearly  twenty  years  he  contributed  substantially 
to  the  support  of  a  brother  who  was  ill,  and  even  to  the  very  last  to 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  19 

the  education  of  nieces  and  nephews.  That  it  was  a  joy  to  him  to  do 
this,  as  it  had  been  to  contribute  to  the  comfort  of  his  parents'  declin- 
ing years,  is  shown  by  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  written  in 
1901:  "Just  now  I  am  sending  two  nieces  to  school  and  a  nephew 
to  college,  and  hiring  an  outside  man  for  my  brother,  who  is  ill.  Many 
of  the  other  things  I  do  not  care  for,  it  is  such  a  pleasure  and  such  a 
privilege  to  do  these."  His  sister  writes:  "What  he  was  to  us  all  as 
counsellor  could  n't  well  be  told  —  it  includes  a  much  wider  family 
circle  of  cousins  and  broadens  into  the  same  service  for  patients  and 
friends." 

Dr.  Folsom's  public  services  did  not  cease  with  his  resignation  from 
the  State  Board.  In  1891  he  was  chosen  overseer  of  Harvard  College, 
and  to  this  important  post  he  was  repeatedly  re-elected,  until  he  had 
served  twelve  years.  In  the  spring  of  1896  he  was  one  of  the  com- 
mission appointed  by  the  Governor  and  Council  "to  investigate  the 
public  charitable  and  reformatory  interests  and  institutions  of  the 
Commonwealth ;  to  inquire  into  the  expediency  of  revising  the  system 
of  administering  the  same,  and  of  revising  all  existing  laws  in  regard 
to  pauperism  and  insanity,  including  all  laws  relating  to  pauper 
settlements,"  etc.  The  other  members  of  this  commission  were  Mr. 
William  F.  Wharton  and  Professor  Davis  R.  Dewey.  Their  report, 
covering  a  hundred  printed  pages,  was  submitted  in  February,  1897. 
In  1901  he  was  offered  —  so  his  letters  show  —  the  chairmanship  of 
the  State  Board  of  Lunacy,  but  decided  to  decline  this  tempting  offer. 
"Think,"  he  writes,  "of  following  in  Dr.  Howe's  footsteps  with  twice 
as  big  a  field."  In  1903  he  was  selected  as  president  of  the  Harvard 
Medical  School  Alumni  Association.  Truly,  a  rare  list  of  honors  and 
opportunities  for  service. 

As  early  as  1898  Dr.  Folsom  resigned  his  position  as  visiting  physi- 
cian to  the  Boston  City  Hospital,^  "long  before  his  usefulness  to  the 
institution  began  to  wane,"  a  colleague  writes,  10  and  although  he  was 
chosen  consulting  physician  in  1901,  this  appointment  was  one  rather 
of  honor  than  of  active  service.  The  fact  was,  as  many  of  his  friends 
observed,  that  Dr.  Folsom's  policy  for  several  years  before  his  last 

9  The  whole  period  of  Dr.  Folsom's  active  work  in  connection  with  the 
City  Hospital,  not  including  his  service  as  assistant,  was  from  December,  1881, 
to  the  time  of  his  resignation  in  1898.  He  was  first  appointed  Physician 
to  Out-Patients  (December,  1881),  then  Physician  to  Out-Patients  with  Dis- 
eases of  the  Nervous  System  (November,  1882),  then  Visiting  Physician  to 
Patients  with  Diseases  of  the  Nervous  System  (September,  1885),  and  finally 
member  of  the  general  visiting  staff  (December,  1886).  After  his  resignation 
in  1898,  he  was  appointed  Consulting  Physician  in  1901. 

10  Editorial,  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  August  29,  1907. 


20  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

visit  to  Europe  had  been  to  withdraw  from  unnecessary  labors,  not 
on  account  of  obvious  ill  health,  and  surely  not  from  indolence,  but 
from  prudence.  In  1899  his  horse  fell  with  him,  and  this  accident  cost 
him  a  broken  rib  and  an  attack  of  pleurisy,  and  marks  the  period  sub- 
sequent to  which  his  strength  and  power  of  work  were  never  quite 
what  they  had  been  before.    In  1901  he  writes  to  Mr.  Gannett :  "  I  am 

sorry  that  I  do  not  write  to oftener  and  to  you  and  to and 

that  I  do  not  do  a  lot  of  extra  things  in  the  way  of  work  of  all  kinds 
and  of  social  duties  and  pleasures.  But  I  discovered  some  time  ago 
that  there  was  not  enough  of  me  to  go  around.  Starting  in  debt  and 
having  something  to  do  for  others  all  the  time,  one  has  to  be  economi- 
cal of  his  strength  if  he  is  going  to  practise  medicine." 

Many  men  would  have  met  this  need  of  economy  of  strength  by 
longer  and  more  frequent  holidays  than  he  took.  But,  fond  as  he 
was  of  the  country,  of  travel,  of  new  friends,  his  habit  of  long  years 
had  been  to  husband  his  strength  by  careful  living,  and  not  to  separate 
himself  far  or  for  long  from  his  patients  and  his  desk.  Perhaps  he 
knew  himself  better  than  his  advisers  knew  him  when  he  chose  this 
mode  of  life,  or  accepted  it  as  a  satisfactory  one  when  it  seemed  forced 
upon  him  by  his  duties.  His  recreation  lay  in  friendly  intercourse,  in 
horseback  riding,  and,  of  late  years,  in  absences  of  short  duration  at 
Little  Boar's  Head,  New  Hampshire,  where  he  and  his  wife,  with 
several  friends,  spent  a  number  of  consecutive  summers.  The  final 
visit  to  Europe,  which  at  best  was  to  have  been  of  but  two  months 
duration,  was  looked  forward  to  by  both  his  wife  and  himself  with  the 
greater  pleasure  for  the  fact  that  it  had  been  so  long  postponed.  He 
was  pretty  well  tired  before  starting,  but  in  essential  ways  had  seemed 
as  well  and  as  serene  as  common.  Perhaps,  in  fact,  he  felt  less  well 
than  he  admitted.  At  any  rate,  even  on  the  passage  outward  he 
seemed  poorly,  and  when  in  England  a  constant  though  slight  fever 
set  in  and  he  was  unable  to  obtain  the  expected  pleasure  from  the 
visits  and  excursions  that  he  made.  While  in  London  he  consulted 
physicians,  among  them  Sir  Lauder  Brunton  and  Sir  Almroth  Wright, 
but  without  avail.  During  the  voyage  homeward  his  fever  increased 
to  a  high  point  and  he  became  delirious.  On  arriving  in  New  York 
he  was  taken  to  the  Roosevelt  Hospital  and  carefully  tended  by  Dr. 
Walter  B.  James.  Here  he  lay  for  several  weeks,  at  times  improving 
slightly,  at  times  worse  again,  but  on  the  whole  gradually  losing 
ground.  Much  of  the  time  his  mind  wandered  a  little,  but  it  was 
striking  to  note  how  fully  he  retained  his  characteristic  patience  and 
his  unmurmuring  readiness  to  accept  results,  whatever  they  might  be. 
Perhaps  he  felt  sure  from  the  first  that  he  should  not  get  well,  and 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  21 

certainly  he  once  said  that  he  knew  he  was  approaching  his  end  and 
that  "  the  clock  had  struck  twelve;"  but  this  may  be  taken  rather  as  a 
temperamental  note  of  acquiescence  than  as  a  conclusion  based  on 
evidence.     He  died  at  last  quietly  and  without  pain. 

The  examination  showed  that  he  had  been  suffering  from  an  ulcera- 
tive, infective  endocarditis,  with  embolisms,  to  which  it  was  thought 
his  old  valvular  heart-disease  had  rendered  him  susceptible. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  testimonials  to  the  character  and  abil- 
ity of  Dr.  Folsom  from  the  words  —  spoken,  written,  or  printed  —  of 
his  colleagues  and  his  friends.  Perhaps,  however,  the  most  fitting 
close  to  this  brief  sketch  is  given  in  the  final  paragraphs  of  a  private 
letter  from  Mr.  Gannett,  who  was  the  oldest  and  probably  the  closest 
of  Dr.  Folsom's  friends.  After  referring  to  the  fact  that  at  each  new 
meeting  following  a  long  interval  of  separation  he  found  him  always 
"hard  at  work,  the  same  loyal  friend,  simple,  modest,  gentle,  high- 
minded,  lovable  .  .  .  yet  growing  in  power  and  in  service,  .  .  ."  Mr. 
Gannett  goes  on  to  say,  "It  is  strange  how  well  one  can  know  a  man's 
self  while  knowing  so  little  of  his  works  and  days.  The  reason,  no 
doubt,  lies  in  the  same  loyalty,  —  he  was  loyal  to  himself ;  through 
his  growth  and  success  he  remained  the  same  man  I  knew  in  our 
youth.  I  was  always  grateful  for  his  holding  on  to  me,  and  counted 
it  an  honor.  And  it  seems  so  easy  to  hold  on  to  him  now  for  the  same 
reason,  —  now  when  his  greeting  no  longer  waits  me  in  Boston.  I 
happened  yesterday  to  be  looking  up  something  about  George  William 
Curtis,  and  came  across  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  —  not  yet  even  Gov- 
ernor —  said  of  him  at  some  club  in  New  York  City,  not  long  after 
his  death.  He  spoke  of  the  serene  purity  and  goodness  of  character 
which  impressed  every  one  who  came  in  contact  with  Curtis,  —  and 
then  said,  'I  have  used  the  adjective  serene,  it  is  a  beautiful  adjective, 
and  it  is  the  only  adjective  I  know  of  which  is  sufficiently  beautiful  to 
describe  his  beautiful  character.'  I  think  of  Folsom  in  that  way,  — 
the  adjective  and  the  noun,  and  the  whole  expression  apply  well 
to  him." 

A  testimonial  of  another  form  deserves  especial  mention.  A  large 
number,  nearly  seventy,  of  his  friends  and  patients,  "who  wished  in 
this  way  to  express  their  grateful  appreciation  of  Dr.  Folsom's  unfail- 
ing care  and  skill  as  a  physician,  and  their  admiration  for  him  as  a 
man  "  (Harvard  Bulletin,  March  4,  1908),  presented  Harvard  Univer- 
sity with  a  fund  of  ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  establishment  in  the 
Harvard  Medical  School  of  "The  Charles  Follen  Folsom  Teaching 
Fellowship,"  in  Hygiene  or  in  Mental  and  Nervous  Diseases.  The 
issue  of  the  Bulletin  in  which  this  gift  was  announced  contains  also  an 


22  DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM. 

editorial  upon  Dr.  Folsom  which  concludes  as  follows:  "But  it  was 
not  as  an  authority  on  public  health  and  on  mental  and  nervous  dis- 
eases or  as  a  College  officer  that  his  former  patients  and  colleagues 
have  sought  to  perpetuate  his  name  in  an  institution  which  he  loved 
so  well.  It  was  as  a  friend,  perhaps  as  a  host  to  whom  entertaining 
was  a  fine  art,  that  they  knew  him.  Wise,  firm,  kind,  and  indefatig- 
able, he  rarely  departed  from  a  sick-room  without  leaving  his  patient 
stronger  in  mind,  if  not  in  body.  His  constant  thoughtfulness  of  his 
charges,  in  health  as  in  illness,  was  unending,  and  many  a  patient  owes 
a  sound  mind  and  a  sound  body  to  Charles  Folsom's  sagacity,  skill, 
and  loving  care.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  of  him  more  truly  than  of 
many  physicians  and  of  most  men  that  he  was  like  "rivers  of  water 
in  a  dry  place  and  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land." 

James  J.  Putnam. 


PRINCIPAL   PUBLICATIONS     I 

A  Scotch  Insane  Asylum.         Boston  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour.,  Aug.  12,  1875. 
The  Treatment  of  Insanity  in  England  and  America. 

Ibid.,  Dec.  9,  1875. 
Report  by  a  Commission  on  the  Sewerage  of  Boston.  1876. 

The  Present  Aspect  of  the  Sewerage  Question.  1877. 

Diseases  of  the  Mind  and  other  Papers.     State  Board  of  Health,  1877. 
Causes  of  Typhoid  Fever.  Bost.  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour.,  March  4,  1880. 

Cases  of  Insanity  and  Fanaticism.  Ibid.,  March  11,  1880. 

Four  Lectures  on  Insanity. 

Bost.  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour.,  May  13,  July  8,  15,  and  22,  1880. 
Vital  Statistics  of  Massachusetts. 

39th  Report  to  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  relating  to  the  Registry 
and  Return  of  Births,  Marriages,  and  Deaths  for  year  ending  Dec.  31, 
1880. 

The  Early  Diagnosis  of  Progressive  Paralysis  of  the  insane. 

Bost.  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour.,  June  16,  1881. 
The  Relation  of  the  State  to  the  Insane.  Ibid.,  Aug.  4,  1881. 

The  Management  of  the  Insane.  Ibid.,  Sept.  22,  1881. 

The  Crime  at  Washington  and  its  Lesson. 

Editorial    Ibid.,  July  14,  1881. 
Recent  Progress  in  Mental  Disease.  Ibid.,  Oct  27,  1881. 

The  Case  of  Guiteau.  Ibid.,  Feb.  16,  1882. 

Some  Obscure  Mental  Symptoms  of  Disease.  Ibid.,  Aug.  17,  1882. 

The  Responsibility  of  Guiteau.  American  Law  Review,  1882. 

40th   Report  to  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  relating  to  the 

Registry  and  Return  of  Births,  Marriages,  and   Deaths   for  the 

Year  ending  Dec.  31,  1881. 


DR.    CHARLES   FOLLEN   FOLSOM.  23 

Two  Cases  of  Injury  to  the  Back. 

Bost.  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour.,  Jan.  24,  1884 

General  Paralysis  in  the  Prodromeal  Period.  Ibid.,  Nov.  5,  1885 

Six  Lectures  on  School  Hygiene  and  the  Relation  of  our  Public 

Schools  to  the  Disorders  of  the  Nervous  System.  1886 

Mental  Diseases. 

Amer.  System  of  Medicine,  Vol.  V.     Reprinted  Oct.  25,  1886 
Cases  of  Multiple  Neuritis.  Ibid.,  May  19,  1887 

The  Early  Stages  of  General  Paralysis. 

Bost.  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour.,  Oct.  3,  1889 
Treatment  in  Typhoid  Fever.  Ibid.,  Dec.  5,  1889 

Disorders  of  Sleep,  Insomnia.  Ibid.,  July  3,  1890 

Some  Points  Regarding  General  Paralysis.  Ibid.,  Sept.  3,  1891 

Address  at  the  Opening  of  Johns  Hopkins  Medical  School  for  Women 

1891 
Henry  Ingersoll  Bowditch. 

Amer.  Acad.  Arts  and  Sci.,  1892.     Vol.  XXVIII 
Cases  of  Traumatic  Headache.  Ibid.,  June  28,  1894 

The  Prevalence  and  Fatality  of  Pneumonia.  Ibid.,  July  16,  1896 

Report  of  the  Committee  to  Investigate  the  Public  Charitable  and 
Reformatory  Interests  and  institutions  of  the  State.     Feb.,  1897 
Address  Harvard  Medical  Alumni  Association.  Oct.,  1903 


SOCIETIES    OF  WHICH  DR.   FOLSOM  WAS  A  MEMBER  BESIDES 
THOSE  MENTIONED   IN  THE  TEXT. 

Association   of   American   Physicians.      Original   Member;    later,    Hon. 

Member. 
American  Medical  Society. 
Massachusetts  Medical  Society. 
Massachusetts  Medico-Legal  Society. 
Suffolk  District  Medical  Society. 
Society  of  Psychiatry  and  Neurology. 
Boston  Society  of  Medical  Improvement. 
American  Academy  of  Arts  And  Sciences. 
American  Statistical  Association. 
American  Social  Science  Association. 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science. 
National  Geographical  Society. 
Boston  Society  of  Natural  History. 
Reading  Masters  Society. 
St.  Botolph  Club.  * 


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